DUI Lawyers in Union Beach, NJ

UNION BEACH - For the past several summers, longtime Aberdeen residents Bob and Mary McKenty have made the short trip to JakeaBob’s Bay restaurant and bar on Raritan Bay in Union Beach.

This summer, something was different.

The bay that made this bayside haunt so appealing was gone from view, vanished behind a huge berm — a long sand dune built during the offseason by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The food is good, the prices are good, and we like the folks who work there. They’re very nice,” Bob McKenty said. “But they put in all of that sand and now you can’t even see the bay from JakeaBob’s Bay.”

The berm is part of the long-awaited shoreline protection enhancements necessitated by superstorm Sandy’s flooding in 2012. The storm surge devastated much of the Monmouth County Bayshore and Union Beach in particular.

As a challenging 2024 summer season winds down for JakeaBob’s, which lost a big chunk of seating (32 tables, 74 total seats) due to the Army Corps project, the situation there highlights the balancing act between protecting waterfront communities and supporting their staple businesses.

Clock ticking on 2025

JakeaBob’s first opened in 1999 as a brick-and-mortar establishment. In 2012 Sandy wiped the place out, along with much of the surrounding borough. In 2016, owner Gigi Liaguno-Dorr reopened it as an outdoor-only tiki bar and deck overlooking the Raritan Bay, with a spectacular view of New York City’s skyline.

The new view is a high mound of sand with vegetation growing out of it. Liaguno-Dorr knew this was coming, so she had applied to New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection for a CAFRA (Coastal Area Facility Review Act) permit to enable JakeaBob’s to expand and restore the view by building a raised deck up and over the dune. The permit, which also needs approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, did not happen for the 2024 season.

“She’s applied for permits with the DEP and the Army Corps to raise her property and get the water view back,” Union Beach Mayor Charlie Cocuzza said of Liaguno-Dorr, who declined to comment on the situation. “My hope is that the DEP and Army Corps approve her permits with what she has proposed. What she’s asking for is not radical.”

The new goal, as evidenced by poster boards throughout JakeaBob’s that read “Coming 2025” and feature an artist’s rendering of the proposed renovations, is to have the view restored by next May (the restaurant is closed from October through April).

“This is a very high priority of us,” Cocuzza said of Union Beach’s government. “(JakeaBob’s) employs over a hundred people, and a lot of them are college kids and residents. Overall, they’re the biggest draw in Union Beach as far as bringing people in from out of town.”

He added, “They are our local economy.”

'We will be tested'

State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, whose 13th legislative district includes Union Beach, is no stranger to JakeaBob’s. When friends of his recently moved to Union Beach, “I said, ‘The very first thing you should do is to go JakeaBob’s, because it’s an institution,’” he said.

“Preserving JakeaBob’s is as essential as preserving Union Beach — it’s that loved, and it’s a great spot,” he said.

But O’Scanlon, who was a state assemblyman in 2012, also saw up close the destruction Sandy wrought.

“You hope that there’s a way that there can be an accommodation made (for JakeaBob’s) to make sure they have as much access to water views as possible,” he said. “At the same time the dune protects not only JakeaBob’s if we have another storm, but the whole town of Union Beach.”

He added, “It’s not if, but when we have another (major) storm. We will be tested, and we hope all these things we’re doing will dramatically reduce the heartbreaking losses we all saw with Sandy.”

The issue is not necessarily either/or in nature — either protect the borough or support JakeaBob’s. It’s more a matter of: Will the state and federal bureaucracy move on this time for summer 2025?

“I am hopeful, and we’re absolutely going to encourage them,” O’Scanlon said. “We have to make sure these places survive and thrive, and we will not stop working toward that.”

'Get this done'

Cocuzza recalls that when Sandy first hit, Liaguno-Dorr volunteered to staff the borough’s emergency food pantry before she began to pick up the pieces of the old JakeaBob’s.

“Gigi lived through Sandy. She doesn’t want to go through that again and we don’t want to go through that again,” Cocuzza said. “They (JakeaBob’s) never stood in the way of the Army Corps project.”

Cocuzza cited the high level of cooperation between all involved as a reason why “it should not take the state and Army Corps very long to decide,” on the permit request.

“I’m sure the state and the federal government don’t want to be the ones responsible for killing the local economy here,” the mayor said. "We have a good relationship with them, so I’m very hopeful that they get this done as quick as they can so (Liaguno-Dorr) can open up in 2025 and be restored to what she had.”

He added, “One thing I can say with 100% certainty is that the town is not going to be the impediment here. There are too many people in town that rely on that income. We’re not going to see them get hurt. It’s on the state and the Army Corps now.”

There have been patrons who’ve shown up to JakeaBob’s this summer unaware of landscape change, and then turned around and left, but Bob and Mary McKenty were not among them — nor will they be.

“I feel bad for Gigi because she’s having all these obstacles,” Bob said. “But I’ll go even if they don’t do anything else.”

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

Officials are investigating a report that lead material was found in the water and on the shore of the Raritan Bay in Keyport, not far from the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site in the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge.

The Environmental Protection Agency was made aware of the situation by Greg Remaud, NY/NJ Baykeeper CEO. EPA officials are in direct contact with him to learn more about the report and are investigating the matter, EPA spokesman Stephen McBay said.

Remaud said for months the NY/NJ Baykeeper has been keeping tabs on the site off Walnut Street in the northeastern corner of Keyport near the border with Union Beach.

"The site is adjacent to the Aeromarine site, which contains an improperly capped landfill that has spewed contaminants into the Chingarora Creek and Raritan Bay for decades," Remaud said, adding the site is owned by Bay Ridge Realty Corp. of Brooklyn.

During a visit in late June, Remaud said, he saw "thousands of chunks of material that looks just like the lead slag at the Superfund site in Laurence Harbor."

"It raised an alarm," he said.

Remaud said the lead was found on the beach and in the water, which is about three to four miles by water from the Superfund site in Laurence Harbor.

Remaud sent the material to EMSL Analytical Inc. for testing and received the results Tuesday evening.

"It confirmed our fear that there is lead on that beach and in the water," he said. "We frequently see people crabbing, fishing and wading nearby. Lead is a very hazardous neurotoxin. If ingested in very small amounts, children can have developmental problems in their brain and bodies and it's very harmful to women who are pregnant. It's about public safety first and foremost. We want to keep people away from it."

It still needs to be determined how far any contamination may extend, where it came from and what is going to be done to remedy the situation, Remaud said.

“The possibility that hazardous lead material may be breaking off from the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site in Old Bridge and spreading all the way to Keyport is deeply concerning," U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said in a statement Wednesday. "The EPA must immediately determine if this contamination is originating from the Slag site. If confirmed, the agency needs to address this issue immediately to prevent further spread."

Pallone later said that he spoke with EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia, who said the EPA is expediting the investigation.

The EPA is prioritizing is determining whether the material originated from the Superfund site, he said.

Pallone said he has been working closely with the EPA on the site's remediation. A contract for the Seawall Sector cleanup is expected to be signed this year.

The Raritan Bay Slag site was placed on the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List in 2009.

The site is adjacent to Old Bridge’s planned beachfront community center.

A portion of the Laurence Harbor beachfront has been closed for years because of lead contamination. The seawall and the jetty were constructed in the 1970s with slag, an industrial byproduct containing lead, manufactured at the Perth Amboy factory of National Lead, now NL Industries.

Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com

Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.